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Show KU W PEARSON Washington, D. C. CORN 'SIT DOWN STRIKE High ranking officials of the agriculture agri-culture department are frank In saying say-ing that farmers are impeding the war effort Just as much as striking coal miners when they stage a sit-down sit-down strike on corn. Feed corn Is desperately needed by poultry farmers, dairy farmers, and corn processors. But corn is I not moving to market because farm-I farm-I ers are holding for a higher price. The typical farmer in the corn belt today is looking at his bins full of corn and reasoning that he might as well hold It for a while, since he doesn't need the cribs yet, and since the price might go up. Washington Is partly to blame for this. The attacks on OPA, the firing of Chester Davis, and the congressional congres-sional demands to set aside the price ceiling, all have created uncertainty. un-certainty. So the farmer sits tight, saying, "I'll Ju&t wait till they make up their minds." But when thousands of farmers do the same thing, it creates a scarcity which throws the national economy out of gear Just as much as the lack of coal production. The patriotic thing to do, say Washington Washing-ton officials, is to send your corn to market now, especially since the farmer is guaranteed the benefit of a price rise, if it comes. Meantime, the corridors of the department de-partment of agriculture are seething. seeth-ing. Pressure for a corn rise is terrific. ter-rific. This is Marvin Jones' first big battle. WICKARD GOES SHOPPING Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard went shopping with Mrs. Wickard the other day. He stood in the grocery store watching the shop-pers, shop-pers, while Mrs. Wickard did the buying. He noticed a crush in front of the meat counter, while the vegetables, Including potatoes, were going beg- S!g. "That's human nature for you," mused Wickard. "Only a few weeks ago, when potatoes were short for a few days, there was a great howl from the public, and potatoes were sold in the black market. Now there's plenty of potatoes but everybody every-body wants meat." When Mrs. Wickard appeared from the crush, she announced with pride that she had some meat. "How much did you pay for it?" 1 asked Wickard. "Nine points," replied Mrs. Wickard. Wick-ard. "No,"- said the secretary of agriculture. agri-culture. "I mean how much money how much a pound?" "Oh, I don't know," she said. "All I know is it cost nine points out of my red stamps." Wickard shook his head. "That's the trouble with you women," he said. "You're not thinking about the cost of food, but only whether you can get it or not. How do you expect merchants to hold to the price ceilings, if you don't even know what you pay?" Mrs. Wickard promised to do better bet-ter next time. Want to Move Fast. The method used in invading Sicily Sic-ily was a compromise among land, air and naval elements, resulting in the "peculiar amphibious operations" opera-tions" Churchill talked about But the air forces believe they can move even faster and more effectively in conquering other parts of Italy if they don't have to be tied down by classical warfare. For instance, with bases in Sicily, army airmen think they can so pulverize pul-verize the industrial plants of northern north-ern Italy that they can bomb that country out of the war without waiting wait-ing for huge landing operations to come up and help them. Then with air bases in northern Italy, they are within range of the hidden synthetic gasoline and rubber factories which Hitler has moved into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Czechoslo-vakia. Thus, step by step, the air forces believe they can knock out the enemy without resorting to clas-ical clas-ical warfare. ( Axis Planes Knocked Out. Here is one significant thing army airmen point to. During the ten days just before we invaded Sicily the Nazis had been sending a lot of new planes into Sicily and southern Italy. But after one day of fresh Axis air strength, which was heavily damaged by U. S. planes, there followed a day or two of weak resistance. re-sistance. In other words. Axis planes were knocked out and had to wait for reinforcements. These reinforcements re-inforcements kept coming up until about two days before the invasion, after which Axis air resistance was light CAPITAL CHAFF C Since the Washington Post ex-l ex-l posed the use of diplomatic cars tor driving to dinner, many a Washington Washing-ton diplomat has been going out on foot . . . Among five Washingtoni-ans Washingtoni-ans who were penalized for pleasure pleas-ure driving was John Qulncy Adams. Ad-ams. C One reason for the Nazi announcements announce-ments that an Allied invasion will start on such-and-such a date is that if the invasion does not materialize, Hitler can boast that it was called oil because of German strength. |